The federal prosecutor’s office is investigating what could be a new large-scale corruption scandal in a federal ministry.
The developers of the “Electronic Russia” federal project are suspected of stealing more than $10 million allocated to state funds.
According to an initial investigation, unnamed officials in the Ministry of Communications have been forging equipment supply contracts.
The money was then reportedly paid to suspicious offshore companies.
This comes soon after the state purchase publishing portal announced a new tender worth $26 million. The record-high sum of money will be spent on modernizing its website.
It has been renovated every year during its five years of its existence. The latest version went online only in January.
Experts have been suspicious over the amount of money offered. Even Wikipedia, one of the world’s most visited websites, costs just about $1 million a year to maintain.